Indo-European Poetry and Myth

In Beowulf 696 f. the Lord is said to have granted the Weder-Geats wı ̄gspe ̄da gewiofu, ‘webs of war-successes’, that is, a vic ...

DEATH One’s fated death, by definition, cannot be postponed or (one would sup- pose) advanced. But an idiom attested in Greek, L ...

appears already in the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh, and in the prophet Jeremiah.^35 But in imagining death people are not content w ...

god Telibinu is sent by spells to the underworld, it is observed that ‘what goes in does not come out again’.^37 Crossing the wa ...

that at Baltic funerals the deceased was given two coins in his left hand to pay the ferryman for crossing the river.^41 In Russ ...

was guarded by a maiden to whom he had to declare his name and family (Gylf. 49). In the Latvian songs it is a muddy marsh that ...

Beware of the Dog As in the upper world houses are commonly guarded by a dog who repels those who have no business inside but al ...

Pastures and herds The Indo-Europeans were pastoralists, and it was pleasant to imagine that their broad pasture-lands would be ...

Yaména! (RV 10. 14. 8, cf. 154. 4). King Yama is called sam ̇ gámana- jána ̄na ̄m, ‘gatherer of peoples’ (10. 14. 1). There is a ...

Arrian (ap. Eust. 1615. 3) described a feast of the dead among the Bithynians, who were perhaps of Thracian origin. The souls of ...

But better is it, that ye fly heavenwards. Shoo! Shoo!^63 In Latvia and Lithuania the occasion could be at the time of a burial, ...

Cattle die, kinsmen die, oneself dies likewise. I know one [masc.] that never dies: each dead man’s repute. (Hávamál 77) Trenghi ...

Hdt. 7. 220. 4 βουλο ́ μενον κλο καταθσθαι μονον Σπαρτιητων, ‘(Leonidas) wishing to establish glory for himself alone of th ...

la ̄man da ̄i-, Vedic na ̄ ́ma dha ̄-, Avestan na ̄ma ̨n da ̄-, Greek Zνομα τθεσθαι, Latinindere nomen, Tocharian A ñom ta ̄-, ...

corresponds in sense, and the second element etymologically, with runic Norse Haþuwulaf.^82 Many names feature the horse.^83 He ...

appears (rendered as Tawagalawas) in the Hittite records. Roman names from this root are not numerous, but Cluvius, Clovatius, C ...

A band of three hundred warriors wearing gold torques went to their deaths, but ‘before they were slain, they slew; and till the ...

Indic hero Karna, who declares outright, ‘I choose fame on earth even at the cost of my life. The famous man attains to heaven, ...

qοιδwν κα? $μ:ν κλο, so far as singing and my own fame can assure it’ (PMGF S151. 47 f.). Pindar, bidding for reward from Hier ...

The serviceability of the patronymic phrase as formulaic ballast to round off the verse appears in a structural pattern common t ...